


Mr. Brightside

by JamesDeanPrincess



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, British Men of Letters, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Magic Healing, Mentions of Rape, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Toni bevell is a bitch, Vomiting, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 04:50:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10072628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamesDeanPrincess/pseuds/JamesDeanPrincess
Summary: Coda to 12x02. Sam struggles with dealing with the aftermath of the torture inflicted upon him by "rogue" British Men of Letters agent Toni Bevell. His mother is back from the dead, his brother is alive, and he has a partner to confide in, but he can barely admit to himself what really happened in that farmhouse, let alone his family.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Indescribable thanks to Cynthia_Gold for beta-ing and providing serious inspiration for the Cas lines. This fanfiction would be a train wreck of my Sam feelings without you and a very very long, multicolored Google Doc.

When you walked into Sam’s room late that evening, he was lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t show any sign he had heard you come in, so you make sure your feet don’t step quietly as you make your way to the bed. “Sammy?” you asked tentatively as you sat next to him. Gently you reached out to place your hand on his arm, and he flinched at your touch, quickly turning his head to look at you. “I’m sorry.” You said as you drew your hand back, placing it on one of your crossed legs. “It’s fine, sorry.” Sam apologized quietly, turning his gaze back towards to blades of the fan as they spun around. For another long minute, their quiet whir was the only sound in the room.

Eventually you spoke up again. “Do you wanna go to bed?”

  
“Yeah,” he said quietly “that sounds good.”

  
You nodded, and got up to brush your teeth at the small sink in the bedroom, but Sam didn’t move from his stoic position on top of the blankets. You changed into your pajamas and climbed back onto the bed, noticing that Sam was still fully dressed, and had no intention of making himself more comfortable. “Sam? Do you wanna get changed or get under the covers?”

  
“No, it’s fine.” He replied, still not making eye contact with you.

  
“You might feel better if—“

  
“It doesn’t matter.” He cut you off softly. But his words hung in the air like thick, hot moisture after a heavy rain. You slid underneath the covers on your side, and switched off the lamp. Settling in, you lay just inches from Sam in the full sized bed and stared at his silent silhouette for a while. You expected him to eventually get under the covers with you and drape a strong harm over your waist like he normally did, but he didn’t move an inch. “Baby,” you began, and when he made a small noise of acknowledgment, you continued, “What happened in there?”

  
He took a deep, shuddering breath, and just shook his head. “I don’t wanna talk about it now. Maybe later. Just need some time to… process.”  
“Okay. Just, if you wanna talk about it, or if you need anything at all, I’m here.” You pressed a tiny, reassuring kiss to his cheek, falling asleep quickly with his presence back in your shared bed.

  
But for Sam, sleep didn’t come quite so easily. After a couple hours, he tried to get some rest, but it seemed impossible. Flashbacks flooded his mind; flashbacks of Toni, of Lucifer, of being soulless, of Ruby… They were ceaseless. He got up to wet his dry mouth with water from the sink, but the rusty pipes made the cold water taste like blood. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and, stifling a gag, laid back down next to you in the bed. He turned away from you to face the wall, tears of shame and heartache dripping onto the pillowcase as he lie awake in bed, a restless, fitful sleep overtaking him an hour later.

  
When you woke up the next morning, around eight, Sam’s warm body had already left your bed. Checking the time and putting on slippers to fight the bunker’s cold wooden floors, you got up and padded down the hallway towards the kitchen to see if he was there. The kitchen was normally dark and empty at this time, as Dean didn’t usually wake up to cook breakfast till about nine. But there was always a pot of coffee brewing by seven, courtesy of Sam. That’s when you knew something had to be wrong.

  
Meanwhile, in the shower, Sam had the water as hot as it would go, scrubbing himself with soap as hard as he could. He had already taken his Irish Spring over the full length of his body three times, and now he was on a fourth turn. His second round of shampoo was still in his hair, only partially washed away by the water streaming down over him. Rinsing the soap off his body, he decided it still wasn’t enough, and lathered up the bar of soap again, this time using his fingernails to scrub away at his heat-reddened skin. A sheen of sweat covered his body even as water poured down over it. He felt entirely too hot, and was developing a razor burn-like feeling in the sensitive skin of his armpit where he was scratching, but there was no way in hell he was gonna stop until that smell was gone: the smell of that dank farmhouse, of his blood, of her. It was all over him. It filled his nostrils no matter where he was, even twelve hours after he had been rescued.

  
Where the scalding water had been steadily streaming over his backside for the past minute, his crawling flesh had mercifully begun to go numb. For the past twelve hours, he could feel her hands all over him. When you touched his arm, when Cas laid his hand on Sam’s head to heal him, when Dean gave him a pat on the back as he went off to bed, hell even when he hugged his own mother for the first time in his life. He hung his head to cry beneath the curtain of steaming water, for the first time since he almost escaped letting himself feel everything he’d been pushing down until he could be alone.

  
He heard the door open and jumped, dropping the bar of soap to the green tiled floor of the shower. “Sammy?” you called out over the echo of the streaming water. You could see his silhouette through the flimsy shower curtains the three of you had mutually decided needed to be hung up in front of each stall. He appeared startled, even though it wasn’t unusual for one of you to interrupt the other’s shower time. At the sound of your voice, however, the blood stopped pounding in Sam’s ears, and he picked up the bar of soap from the floor, placing it on the metal soap dish mounted on the wall.

  
“Sorry, did I scare you?” you asked, stepping fully inside the shower room and shutting the door slowly.

  
“Uh, yeah, just a little.” Sam let out a little laugh, and started washing away the shampoo from his hair and working in conditioner, taking in a deep breath to get his bearing.  
“How long have you been up?” you picked up your brush on the counter and ran it through your tangled hair, watching his silhouette through a cleared off window you made in the foggy mirror. You saw Sam rinsing out the conditioner, blowing away water from his nose and mouth. “I think since seven? I don’t know, after I got up I came straight here. What time is it now?”

  
“8:19. Sam you’ve been in here for an hour and a half? God it’s hot in here.” you fanned yourself with your shirt and padded over to the stall Sam was occupying. Sticking out your hand, you felt the small spray of water that was slipping past the curtain. When a few drops had landed on your skin, you jerked your hand back, exclaiming, “Sam, this water is burning hot! Has it been this hot the whole time?”

  
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know, I didn’t really notice.” he lied, breath hitching as he breathed in a cloud of steam. His hair was clean, and he knew you weren’t going to let him spend another hour scrubbing the top layer of his skin off, so he shut off the water and opened the curtain, grabbing his towel off the nearby hook and immediately wiping his face. Then his hair, his shoulders, on down to his legs, then back to his trunk. Hurriedly he toweled himself dry until the only water remaining on his body was in the droplets that hung from the ends of his damp hair, then wrapped the towel around his waist. He moved past you to the sink, clearing off a window of his own in the mirror and brushing his teeth. While his back was turned to you, you noticed how red his skin was.

  
“Oh, Sammy...” you walked up behind him and gently touched his flushed backside with your fingertips. Sam flinched ever so slightly, and immediately you took your hand away. His eyes met yours in the mirror, and he took the toothbrush out of his mouth, quickly spit in the sink, and returned his gaze to yours, feeling a pang of guilt at how hurt you looked. “I’m sorry…” he apologized.

  
“Don’t, it’s okay, Sam. I just want to help you. Tell me what I can do.”

  
He looks down briefly, flexing his jaw and setting his toothbrush back in its holder. He turns around and leans against the counter, folding his arms in front of his chest and staring up at the ceiling. He sighed, then closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s just… gonna take some time before I can get back to normal.”

  
“That’s okay, Sam. Take all the time you need. No one’s expecting you to be perfectly fine a day after being kidnapped and tortured.” When he only nodded a little, you spoke again. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

  
“No.” he said quickly. It was your turn to nod a little. After a long minute of silence, he unfolded his arms and turned to face you, staring intensely into your eyes as you looked up at him. “Y/n, you know I love you, right?” he almost whispered.

  
“Sam, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  
“Nothing,” he smiled just a little, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. “Just wanted you to know.”

  
You returned his slight smile, telling him you loved him too, and held his gaze a little while longer. Another minute of silence passed before you broke it again. “Do you wanna go get some breakfast?”

  
“Yeah,” he said, “that sounds good. Just let me get dressed first and I’ll be out in a minute.”

  
“Okay.” you gave him another little smile, then headed out of the shower room and back down the hall to the kitchen. When you shut the door behind you, Sam turned back around to face the mirror, letting out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding as he stared blankly at his reflection. Slowly his hold on his present state of reality began to slip in that moment, and his control on the volume of the voices in his head were lost with it. _No wait, here’s my personal favorite: you doing every stupid thing you could to cure the Mark, even after you knew it would go bad._

  
_You can’t win this one, Sam. You’re just not strong enough._

  
_Was it good for you?_

  
_You’re all duct tape and safety pins inside!_

  
_Maybe it was the fact that my mother would still be alive if it wasn’t for you._

  
_Was it good for you?_

  
**_Was it good for you?_ **

By the next evening, it was a mutual understanding that everyone needed a little break from the action. A sabbatical from the hunting career, if one will. So Dean, armed with the shocking knowledge that his mother doesn’t cook and a fierce craving for chili, came back from a local grocery store one evening with two pounds of ground beef, an onion, a green pepper, two cans of diced tomatoes, a bag of shredded cheese, sour cream, chili powder, and a six pack that leaned a bit more on the expensive side, but was well-deserved. He could be heard from both hallways leading away from the kitchen singing off-key to his classic rock playlist on Pandora.

  
“He sounds happy…” you remarked with an amused smirk, looking up from your book as you sat with Mary in the more homey section of the library. “Yeah, he does.” she replied with the same smirk, pausing her perusal through John’s journal. As she looked down at a faded picture of a four-year-old Sam, smiling a big, cheesy smile at the camera, standing next to a Lego tower almost as tall as him, she hesitantly asked, “What’s Sam like?”

  
You looked up at her and met her eyes, noting they looked almost exactly like Dean’s as you dog-eared your page and set the book down on your lap. “What do you mean, exactly?”

  
Mary sighed. “I mean, who is he? What kind of man is he? What kind of music does he like? Does he laugh a lot? Does he tell a lot of jokes? Does he cook? Does he sing? Would he hold your hand if you got scared watching The Exorcist? I don’t know my son, Y/n. And… I don’t know how to start.”

  
The corners of your mouth turned up a little at the thought of finally being able to brag to someone about your boyfriend. “Well, he’s extremely smart, for starters. I’m sure Dean already told you he got into Stanford on a full ride. He’s incredibly sweet and intuitive, and he usually doesn’t get angry very easily, but when he does it’s for a good reason. He’s funny, but he doesn’t normally let that side of him show. When he does laugh, though, you just can’t help but join in. It’s lighthearted but it’s deep and comes from his whole body. It’s… the best sound I’ve ever heard.

  
“He doesn’t actually like a lot of the same music as Dean. Older music isn’t really his thing, though he does like some 80’s rock and some songs from the 40s and 50s. He’s not the best cook, I mean he can’t beat Dean. Except when it comes to grilled cheese. It’s seriously the best grilled cheese in the world; I don’t know how he does it. Oh, but sometimes when he uses the oven, he forgets to turn it off, so Dean kinda put a ban on him making anything other than grilled cheese and microwave oatmeal. Umm, what else… He can’t sing very well, he’s not tone-deaf, but he’s also not gonna win American Idol anytime soon. He’ll sing along a little in the Impala when he’s in the mood, but mostly he doesn’t sing unless I ask him really nicely,” you laughed a little, and Mary smiled wide. “He’s got a voice that’s nice to listen to, though, even if it’s not particularly good.

  
“He doesn’t like to watch many scary movies, he says our lives are enough like a horror movie that he doesn’t need to waste time watching one. But if he’s got no other choice on a movie night or if I ask him to watch it with me, he will. I don’t get scared easy, but sometimes I pretend just so he can feel like he’s protecting me. I think he knows I do that, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Sam’s an amazing and wonderful man, and I’m so lucky to have him. You’d be very proud of who he’s become. He saved the world, Mary.”  
“I just wish I could’ve been there, even for a little while when he was growing up.” Mary admitted wistfully.

  
“He does too. That time we met you and John in the past, he almost blew our cover when you opened the door. Every night for weeks, after Dean was asleep, he’d talk about you until he fell asleep, just rambling about how beautiful you were and how nice you seemed, and what he thought you were like… But he doesn’t blame you, Mary,” you reassured her when you saw tears well up in her eyes. “Not one bit. I don’t know if he knows the whole story, but even if he does, that’s not the kind of person he is. He would never hold anything against you.”

  
Mary took a deep breath and wiped a tear that had fallen on her cheek with the back of her hand. “Thank you,” she said. “I know that at some point I’ll have to get to know Sam through Sam, but I think it helps to get a little background first. So maybe I have an idea how to start a conversation with him.”

  
“That makes sense. But honestly, Mary, you could talk to him about how meat is made and he’d sit with you for hours, just because you’re his mom, and he loves you.”

  
Dean came out into the library just then, dish towel slung over his shoulder and a piece of cornbread in his hand. “Hey. Dinner’s ready, someone go tell Sasquatch.” he said just before taking another big bite, nodding in approval at his cooking skills. You smiled and rolled your eyes, getting up from your chair and announcing you’d go retrieve your boyfriend. Mary and Dean were walking towards the kitchen as you walked down the hallway to the bedrooms. A couple twists and turns later, you arrived at room number 21, the room you shared with Sam. You opened the door, starting to tell him dinner was ready and it smells amazing, but you stopped when you saw the room was dark and Sam was lying on his side facing the wall. “Sam?” you asked quietly, thinking he was taking a nap. But when a defeated “Yeah?” came from his tired body you knew he wasn’t.  
Without making any sudden movements, you climbed up onto the bed and sat behind him, gingerly letting your thumb touch the rolled up sleeve in the crook of his elbow. Sam moved his arm in order to grasp your hand in his, pulling it down so your arm was wrapped around his front. Accepting the first invitation you’d been given to touch your boyfriend in days, you laid down on your side, effectively spooning him, and pressed a small kiss between his shoulder blades, combing the fingers of your free hand gently through his hair. “Baby?” you said, tender voice muffled slightly by his cotton shirt.

  
Sam took a deep breath and responded, “I just--need a minute. Just lay here with me, please.”

  
“Okay,” you nodded and breathed in his scent. “Anything you need.”

  
Minutes of comforting silence passed before anyone came looking for the two of you. You weren’t sure exactly how many, fifteen or twenty perhaps, but soon a thundering knock sounded at your door, interrupting the peaceful quiet, and Dean’s resonating voice followed. “Come on, dinner’s ready and we wanna eat! I swear to God if you two are screwin’ in there--”

  
Feeling a sudden protective streak run through you at Dean’s salacious insinuation, you hollered at him through the door, a bit harsher than you intended. “Dean! Go away, we’ll be out in a minute!”

  
“Okay! Shit, see you in a minute.” Dean said, a bit defensively, and walked back down the hall, not sure exactly where he went wrong.

  
Still spooning Sam, you started to apologize, both for shouting almost directly in his ear, and for chastising his brother for no real rational reason. “It’s fine,” he began, slowly letting go of your hand and moving to sit up. You moved too, and before Sam went to get off the bed, you tenderly moved his face in your direction. He looked at his lap for a moment, then into your eyes, glittering in the dim yellow glow of his reading lamp. You reached up with your thumb and swiped a tear away from just underneath his eye, and he smiled at the gesture. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” He murmured, briefly breaking eye contact.

  
“Don’t rush it, sweetheart. I know you’ll be fine, just take your time and heal.” you rubbed your thumb affectionately over his cheekbone, and he kissed the palm of your hand. Placing your hand back in your lap, you took a second to think before you spoke again. “Sam, do you wanna--”

  
“Y/n, no. I can’t talk about that with you.” he interjected. He must’ve seen the hurt look on your face, because he quickly recovered his statement. “I didn’t mean it like that, I mean it’s not because of you, I just-- I don’t,” he sighed. “I’m struggling right now, and I need to come to terms with… some things. And I promise when I’ve got it figured out, I’ll talk about it with you.” he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your mouth, which you gladly reciprocated. When he pulled away, you added, “Promise me you’ll talk to someone if it gets too bad. I don’t care who, just someone.”

  
“I promise,” he placed a kiss on the tip of your nose, then unfolded his legs to get up off the bed. “Come on, I smell chili.”

 

Dinner was surprisingly lively. Mary told hilarious anecdotes about her and John and when Dean was a kid, Dean and Sam playfully ragged on each other about some of the less fortunate yet more amusing moments in their young adult lives, and you shed light on the dorkier sides of them that they hadn’t touched on. Cas even jumped in a little, and as a result the rest of you jumped in on Cas. It was light-hearted banter and witty accounts the whole night, along with some glory days-type hunting stories and jokes. Eventually, when the cornbread was gone and tears of laughter had dried on their cheeks, and everyone had had their fill of heaping bowls of Dean’s surprisingly awesome chili, it was time to start clean-up. As Dean was gathering the empty pot and the large plate covered in cornmeal crumbs, he asked about his self-dubbed culinary masterpiece. “So, was it good?”

  
Sam had spaced out a bit by that point, lost in earlier stories, brought back to reality after a few resounding “hell yeah’s” and the repeated call of his name. “Hm? Sorry, I was thinkin’ about something.”

  
“Was it good?” Dean reiterated.

  
A cold sweat broke out over Sam’s entire body, and the color immediately vanished from his normally tan face. His heart rate sped up dramatically, and suddenly he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. Quickly, he got up from the table, almost knocking his chair over as he did so. He began backing away slowly from the table and the people gathered around it, struggling catch his breath and focus, though it didn't do any good. His head was swimming, and your voices came through muffled as though he were underwater. “Sam? What’s wrong?”

  
“Sammy you okay? Hey come on, sit down.” Dean reached over and placed his hand on the back of Sam’s shoulder to try to steady him, but he flinched away, taking a few more steps towards the hallway.

  
“Sweetheart sit down for a second.” Mary said gently.

  
“Uh… I-- I have to go. I’m sorry.” he stammered, turning on his heel and briskly walking down the hall. A hallway or two away from the library, his stomach began to churn violently. Realizing he was about to lose his dinner and that he was nowhere near the bathroom, he darted into the nearest empty bedroom. Slamming the door shut behind him, he fell to his knees in front of a bag-less waste basket just as his stomach clenched, releasing all of its contents into the plastic bin below him. Just as he was done, the memory flashed through his mind again, causing him to retch almost painfully. Bile lurched from his throat and spilled out of his mouth, the burning taste and smell causing him to clamp his eyes shut. He dry heaved for another minute, pushing his sweaty hair back with the hand that wasn’t gripping the side of the trash can. When he was sure he was done, he pushed the basket away and sat back against the cold brick wall, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt.

  
He took a few deep breaths, trying to relax, but all he could smell was the stench of his sick. Slowly, Sam got up off the ground, feeling the ache in his knees as he walked to the sink to rinse out his mouth. He splashed some cool water over his face and looked at his tired reflection in the mirror. He walked back over to the door, locking it before lying down on the mildly dusty bedspread. He exhaled heavily and covered his weary face with his hands. His mind was mercifully blank as he listened only to the sound of his own breath in the pitch black room. Until, for the second time that evening, a knock at the door broke the comforting silence.

  
“Y/n, I just need to be alone for a little while.” Sam uttered hoarsely from his position on the bed.

  
“Sam, it’s Cas.” A deep, throaty voice responded through the door. When Cas didn't hear any more noise coming from the spare room, he spoke again. “Sam? May I come in?” Still nothing came from inside the room, and just as Cas was debating whether to give up and leave or break down the door, Sam unlocked it and pulled it open. He stepped aside, allowing Cas entrance, and then shut the door again.

  
The first thing Cas noticed was the smell of bile, and Sam's shoulders, hunched in defeat. His eyes were tired, and there was a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. Cas’ first instinct was to offer healing for his sickness, but a quick assessment informed him the problem was not of physical origin.

  
Sam’s eyes flicked around the room nervously as Castiel continued to stare at him, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong. Finally Cas’ gaze dropped and Sam quietly let go of a shaky breath. “Forgive me, Sam. I'm aware that this is an invasion of your privacy, but after you appeared ill at dinner, I began to read your thoughts. At first I believed your behavior to be the result of having contact with Lucifer again, but what I saw suggested otherwise,” Castiel paused and made eye contact with the exhausted human that stood before him, who, in this moment, looked more like a scared puppy than a man. “Sam, were you--”

  
“Don't… say it. Please.” He begged, cutting Cas off before he could say the words Sam hadn't even been able to think.

  
Mildly confused by the request, Cas tried to respond in a somewhat reassuring manner. “Sam there is no shame in--”

  
Again Sam cut him off. “God, Cas, just stop! Nothing. Happened.”

  
“Perhaps I could believe that if you believed it yourself.”

  
Sam bristled at the accusation, taking a moment before he responded, gritting his teeth. “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but it sure as hell isn’t what you’re implying.

  
“Why not?”

  
“Because it can’t be! It. Can’t be. Come on, Cas. Something… like that, doesn’t happen to someone like me. Look at me, Cas. I-- I must’ve done something to, to lead her on, I guess. I… I just don’t know what. I don’t... goddammit I don’t know what I did.” Sam sat down on the edge of the bed and roughly ran a hand through his hair, bowing his head to rest in his hands. His shoulders shook with the labored breaths he was taking trying to calm himself down.

  
Cas wasn’t at all sure what to say, so he stood in silence, trying to form the proper words in his mind before speaking again. But as he was, Sam opened his mouth, making Cas glad he hadn’t responded yet.

  
“I broke,” he began softly. “That’s the only explanation. I broke. She made me see everyone I knew dying in front of me. She tortured me for information about the Men of Letters and I wouldn’t give it to her. I almost got away once, actually. I, uh, pretended I slit my throat,” Sam let out a noise that sounded remarkably like a laugh, and Cas began to wonder if this time, it would be more than Sam could handle. “I was so close, Cas. So, fucking close. God I wish I had gotten away…. But I broke. I told her everything. And she just… we kept…”

  
“I know, Sam,” Cas said to assuage him, recognizing he was having difficulty vocalizing the situation. “If you would like, I could remove the memories of this. You won’t have to remember your time in that farmhouse.” he offered.

  
“What? No, Cas, that-- that’s not an option. No.” Sam refused, standing back up.

  
“Why not, Sam? You didn’t bring this upon yourself. There isn’t any reason for you to live with this if you don’t have to.”

  
“Because! I am sick and tired of angels and demons and now actual people getting inside me and doing whatever the hell they want! Taking memories and time and information and replacing it with… with bullshit! I’m done with people making decisions for me about what I need to know and what I need to do! You don’t get it, Cas! This is just something I’ve gotta deal with!”

  
Castiel inwardly sighed at the inherent stubbornness of the Winchesters, though he did understand Sam’s reasoning, and decided not to press further. “Fine. But if you change your mind, all you have to do is ask.”

  
“Okay.” Sam agreed, glad to be free of this topic of conversation, even though the burden he carried felt a little lighter.

  
“May I make a suggestion?” Cas inquired carefully.

  
“Sure.” Sam said through a short sigh, becoming slightly annoyed by his friend badgering the issue.

  
“I can see why you would want to keep this from Dean, but Y/n is a bit more understanding. I believe confiding in her would bring about a greater sense of reassurance, and perhaps you could begin to heal more quickly. Not to mention, keeping something of this nature a secret could put a detrimental strain on your relationship.”

  
At the mention of your name, Sam’s demeanor softened again. “I can’t tell her. I just can’t.”

 

“Why not?”

  
The first thing that popped into Sam’s head was, _she won’t believe me_. But he shook that thought out of his head immediately after, knowing it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Brushing aside a few more insecure thoughts, he tried to rationalize before composing an answer. Finally, after stripping away everything else, he was left with only the truth. “Because I don’t want this to ruin us. I don’t want her to think less of me. I should’ve been able to stop it and I didn’t, so…” he gave a brief shrug of his shoulders after he trailed off. Part of Sam knew his fears were unfounded, but to him they felt very real.

  
Looking at Sam with a hint of pity, Castiel asked sincerely, “Do you really believe that?”

  
“Honestly, yeah,” Sam murmured. “And I wish I didn’t.”

  
Cas nodded, unsure of where to go from there. All he knew was that Sam couldn’t deal with this alone, and he didn’t have enough grasp on that type of situation to assist him. As they both stood there, neither of them speaking for a considerable amount of time, they began to feel a sense of awkwardness. Cas knew that Sam wasn't going to change his mind any time soon about how he was going to cope, and Sam knew that Cas was fresh out of words of wisdom for the time being. So Sam made a move towards the soiled wastebasket, declaring he was going to empty it and take a shower.

  
Before he got to the door, he turned to Cas and thanked him. Sam didn't say specifically for what, but he didn't have to. Cas offered up a small smile and said, “You're welcome, Sam.”

  
They exited the empty bedroom and went their separate ways down the hall, each a little better and a little worse than when they entered in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> Now they're going to bed and my stomach is sick  
> And it's all in my head  
> But she's touching his chest now  
> He takes off her dress now  
> Open up my eager eyes  
> Cause I'm Mr. Brightside


End file.
